


Blue Moon of Kentucky

by Farasha



Category: Justified
Genre: First Time, Fluff and Angst, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 11:13:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4135356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farasha/pseuds/Farasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boyd and Raylan were nineteen years old, and they already knew they were never going to have what they wanted - this was Harlan County, not a goddamn fairy tale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Moon of Kentucky

**Author's Note:**

> _It was on a moonlit night_  
>  _The stars were shinin' bright_  
>  _And they whispered from on high_  
>  _Your lover's said goodbye_  
>    
>  _Blue moon of Kentucky keep on shinin'_  
>  _Shine on the one that's gone and left me blue_
> 
> From the Tumblr prompt: "Justified, Boyd/Raylan, Raylan's last night in town after the mine cave-in that prompted him leaving."

Boyd felt it first, a tremor under the soles of his boots. He reached for Raylan before he realized he was moving, fingers clutching at his arm and the fabric of his sleeve. He was shouting, but that was secondary - the rumble of the mine drowned his voice out anyway, and Raylan was what mattered, getting Raylan running ahead of the collapse.

Raylan stumbled, bumping their shoulders together, and Boyd just kept pulling. Their headlamps jounced wildly off the struts and crossbeams of the mine shoring as they ran. A cloud of coal dust unfurled in front of them like the hot breath of some deep-dwelling beast, and through the heart pounding in his throat a thought spiked up Boyd's spine like a thunderbolt - _we're not going to make it._

They burst from the mouth of the mine, coughing and clutching at each other, faces smeared black, mouths gritty with the dust. It was the hardest thing in the world to unlock his bruising grip from Raylan's arm, to step back and put distance between them.

"Jesus fuck," Raylan gasped. His hand twitched like he wanted the contact back, but there were too many eyes, the whole crew from the mine spilled out into the daylight and the foreman come running. "Jesus."

"You're okay, Raylan," Boyd said, gasping for breath. The sunlight was too bright, the foreman's shouted questions too loud. Too many heartbeats and voices. All he wanted to hear right now was Raylan. "We live another day, Glory Hallelujah. I thought we were done for sure."

"Fuck." Raylan sounded like a broken record - Boyd might have teased him for it if he didn't feel so shaken loose himself. "If you hadn't been there- I didn't even hear it."

"Didn't hear it either," Boyd said. "Felt it."

They stood staring at each other, chests heaving, and Boyd knew Raylan felt the strain of distance between them just as he did, like an invisible cord trying to reel them together.

The foreman's shout intruded between them. "Crowder! Givens! Shift ain't over boys!"

Raylan jerked like he'd been shot. A fire lit the back of his eyes - Boyd recognized it from when Raylan talked about his daddy, and again he was reaching out without any conscious decision. He caught the back of Raylan's shirt, curling his fingers in it.

Raylan's jaw worked silently. He was restrained by Boyd's hand like a tether. "I'm leaving," he said, low and even. Raylan didn't shout, not like his daddy. Instead he got quiet, like the rage inside him was a cougar waiting to pounce.

"You walk out of here, you're not gonna have a job when you come back." The foreman's voice was a careless drawl, and Boyd almost let go of Raylan just to see what shade of purple he would beat that man's face.

"Sounds good to me." Raylan yanked off his hard hat and his head lamp, hurling it at the foreman. He shook loose of Boyd's grip and walked away without a backward look - not toward where his truck was parked, but off into the trees.

"I'll go after him," Boyd said, shedding his own gear as quick as he could get it off.

"Yeah, I'll bet you will." That was one of the other guys in their crew, a weasel-faced man Boyd never had liked enough to learn his name - and who wasn't important enough to waste time with when Raylan's back had already vanished into the trees.

The woods around the mine were thick and overgrown, oak and sugar maple lacing their branches together to cover the sky. The brush was thick enough that Raylan had left a trail through the dogwoods and witch-hazel. Boyd followed at an unhurried pace - when Raylan got like this, sometimes it was best to let him cool off.

Boyd didn't blame him for being angry, either. Of course the company didn't care about near-death experiences or needing to take a day to get your head on straight. The company didn't care about jack shit besides money, and that was a truth of Harlan County that always had been and always would be.

It made Boyd just as angry, but they were both products of their raising - when Arlo was angry, he got mean. When Bo was angry, he got _righteous_. Boyd would find a way to make the mine foreman and the weasel-faced miner pay for what they'd said - later, when Boyd was sure Raylan wouldn't hear about it. Raylan had strange notions about justice.

He found Raylan on a creek bank, his fingers laced together, knees drawn up and elbows resting on them, head bowed. His face was still streaked with coal dust, his hair matted to his forehead with sweat. He was staring at the lazy crawl of muddy water with a blank expression that didn't make sense with the way he twisted his fingers together, white-knuckled, almost like he was imagining the foreman's neck under his hands.

"Raylan." Boyd tried to keep the concern and the gentleness out of his voice - Raylan didn't respond well when Boyd tried to coddle him, even when the boy needed taking care of. Stubborn as the day was long.

Raylan turned his head just enough so that Boyd could see him looking out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't tell Boyd to go away, which Boyd had half-expected from the way he was curled up like he was trying to shut the world away. He didn't expect Raylan to say anything - when he got quiet, it took a good while for him to come back out of it - but most of the time it seemed they didn't need to talk anyway.

Boyd decided to take the silence as encouragement, and kept approaching slowly. He'd never owned or ridden or been near a horse, but he figured this was what it was like trying to soothe one. "The hell you doin' sittin' there all over dirt like that, come on." It was less of a question and more of something to say. "Get into the creek and let's get you cleaned up."

Raylan let Boyd get his hands under his armpits and pull him to his feet, the both of them staggering down the bank of the creek. He seemed to come back to himself when they got nearer to the water, toeing at his boots until Boyd stopped long enough to let him kick them off. While Raylan was standing still, Boyd pushed his shirt up, pulling it off over Raylan's head, still with no resistance.

This wasn't right. Raylan wasn't passive - he had too little control over his life to let someone else steer him, even if that someone was Boyd. Still, Boyd kept the concern locked up tight, plastering his usual devil-may-care grin across his face.

They were almost into the water Raylan unbuttoned the fly of his jeans and slipped out of them, shucking his boxers just after and wading into the brown creek water. Boyd found himself staring helplessly at Raylan's back, the tanned skin and lean muscle and the trim slope of his hips-

"You wanna keep starin' or you are you comin' in?" Raylan's voice shook him out of his reverie and he tore his eyes away to find that some of the life had come back into Raylan's face, at least in the smirk playing around his lips and the way he stretched his arms up deliberately, just to watch Boyd swallow at the way his muscles shifted under his skin.

"Yeah," Boyd said, and swallowed again at the way his voice had gone rough. Sometimes it seemed like he wanted Raylan far more than Raylan wanted him, but then Raylan would do something like _that_ , which could not be mistaken as anything other than a blatant and obvious attempt to get into Boyd's pants - one that was working, if his dick had anything to say about it. Boyd skinned out of his clothes and splashed into the water. He ducked his head under, scrubbed at his face and hair - the coal dust was gritty on his skin, and it made Boyd's skin crawl. It felt too much like grave dirt, and Boyd didn't want the reminder anymore.

When he came up sputtering and spitting out creek water, Raylan was watching him. The hesitation on his face was typical - whatever this was going on between them (not boyfriends, not for them, not with their families and Harlan in their bones) was still new and laced with uncertainty. It had been born of moonshine and watching the stars on the hood of Raylan's truck, on a night when Arlo had been in a temper worse than usual and Bo wanted his children out of the house while he took care of some business. That night had been kissing and fumbling and no words at all. It should have been awkward but wasn't, even if neither one of them seemed interested in talking about what it meant.

Boyd's heart felt like it was beating too fast, the aftershocks of the adrenaline and anger coursing through his blood. Raylan still had black smudges on his forehead, and Boyd was seized by the urge to wipe away all the evidence of the mines from his boy. Whenever they were together it was like Raylan was the center of his world, like a gravitational pull, and this time was no different, his feet closing the distance between them and his hands going to Raylan's skin.

Raylan looked at him like Boyd was his own personal sun, leaning into Boyd's touch as he wiped away the last of the coal dust. Then Raylan's arms were around him, pulling Boyd tight against his body, his face buried in the wet crook of Boyd's neck. "I would've died down there today if it weren't for you."

"Shh, don't you talk like that," Boyd said. "You're smart as anything, Raylan, you would've seen it, you would've got out-"

"No I wouldn't." Raylan's grip tightened until Boyd felt like his ribs would crack. Sometimes he didn't think Raylan knew how strong he was. They were naked and pressed together, and with the tangle of nerves under his skin, Boyd felt like he was on fire.

"Quit thinkin' on it." Boyd fitted his fingers on Raylan's sides, in the divots between his ribs, and when Raylan lifted his head from Boyd's shoulder it was to kiss Boyd hard enough to mash their lips against their teeth. Their mouths fitted together like they were made for it, Raylan's arms still too tight and his fingers bound to leave bruises where they dug into Boyd's back. Boyd skimmed his palms up Raylan's sides and back down again, squirmed his hand between their bodies and pressed his palm to Raylan's heartbeat. He remembered with perfect clarity the moment when he'd thought they were done for, that they were going to be buried together in a Harlan mine shaft.

Raylan's hands loosened their grip on Boyd's back only to clutch at his arms, the back of his neck, his hair, like Raylan was also assuring himself that Boyd was real and alive. They broke apart gasping. Raylan was not passive anymore, turning Boyd and shoving at him, maneuvering him backward toward the creek bank. Boyd let himself be moved, their lips catching clumsily but neither one of them wanting to break apart for longer than was necessary to breathe.

Boyd ended up on his back in the mud and wet grass of the bank, Raylan's knees planted on either side of his own. The late afternoon sun streamed through the trees and put dapples of sun and shadow on their skin. Raylan's eyes were dark and fathomless, and there was something in his gaze that was wild and aching all at the same time. He kissed down Boyd's chest, his tongue sloppy on Boyd's skin, but Boyd caught him before he could go any lower than the bottom of his ribcage.

"You're not gonna suck my dick when it's just been in dirty creek water, Raylan, come on," Boyd laughed, and the grin stayed hanging around his lips when Raylan rested his cheek against Boyd's chest, his frown almost a pout.

"Guess that means you won't be doin' it to me neither." Raylan huffed against Boyd's skin, his fingers skimming ticklishly up the insides of Boyd's thighs. "Wanna fuck?" he drawled.

Boyd's mouth went paper-dry. They hadn't done that yet, and the thought of it had Boyd's head swimming with want. He didn't even give a damn which one of them was doing what, he just wanted it - that closeness with Raylan, the two of them joined together in body. "Yeah."

Raylan rolled off him and groped for his jeans, yanking them closer and groping around in the pockets. Boyd sat up on his elbows best he could when they sank into the soft ground of the creek bank. Raylan tossed a condom and a packet of lube - like the kind that came in titty magazines - on Boyd's chest. Boyd grinned up at him. "Raylan Givens, were you plannin' on gettin' me alone?"

Raylan ducked his head on a sheepish, half-embarrassed smile. "Wanted to," he said. "I've been thinkin' about it. Figured next chance we got, we should..." he gestured between them, and Boyd couldn't get enough of the way his cheeks were flushed red and he couldn't quite meet Boyd's eyes and the way he couldn't quite spit out what was on his tongue.

"You wanna fuck me, Raylan?" Boyd said, his turn to drawl, leaning back and wrapping one hand around his dick.

"Jesus, Boyd," Raylan said, and then he was mouthing at the line of Boyd's throat, teeth nipping at his collarbone, hands curled around the backs of Boyd's thighs.

"You ever done this before?" Boyd asked, as Raylan picked up the packet of lube.

Raylan gave him a funny look. "Have you?"

Boyd's grin got bigger, practically baring his teeth. "I have not - not with anyone else. Now, if we wanna talk about how creative I can get in the shower, that's another story."

" _Boyd_ ," Raylan groaned, staring at him with his lips parted like that was the hottest thing he'd ever thought of in his life. Which gave Boyd ideas.

"You wanna see?" he asked, husky and low, twisting his hand on his cock and stroking himself nice and slow. Raylan's eyes skipped from his face to his dick and back again, the red flush back with a vengeance, crawling up his neck and across his cheekbones.

"You really - you'd really want to-"

"Do I want you to watch me while I stretch myself out for your dick? Hell yeah." Boyd leaned up and snatched the lube packet from Raylan's still fingers.

Raylan licked his lips, which made Boyd's cock twitch even when he did remember why he'd told Raylan to keep his mouth off it. Boyd tore open the packet of lube and squeezed some out on his fingers, hitching his hips down to try and get a decent angle. Raylan grabbed the back of Boyd's thigh and pushed, folding his knee up to his chest.

The first cool touch of his fingers against his hole made Boyd's grin falter, his mouth slackening. He twisted and pushed, and the first finger slid in easy up to the second knuckle. Raylan was staring at him, his brown eyes huge and wide and almost reverent. Boyd's wrist started to ache by the time he pressed another finger in beside the first, but it was worth it for the way Raylan reached for the lube without looking, dazed, and squeezed some out over his own fingers.

"Let me, I wanna-"

Boyd let him gratefully, fisting his cock tight around the base to keep him from blowing it the second Raylan got two slippery fingers up his ass, deeper than he'd ever been able to get himself. His head thumped back onto the ground and his mouth fell open on a long, sincere moan. He screwed his hips down in little hitching movements. Raylan twisted his hand and Boyd bit down on the inside of his wrist to keep from shouting so loud he'd get the attention of the whole holler.

"Jesus Christ Almighty, do that again," he gasped around the wrist in his mouth.

Raylan, bless him, mimicked the motion. It was no less intense this time, the pressure on the base of his cock from the inside, a hot cascade of pleasure rolling across his nerves. "Good?"

"Fuck yes," Boyd said. "Come on."

"You sure you're ready-"

"Boy, if you don't hurry up and fuck me into next Sunday I'm gonna come all over us both and this is gonna be over before it starts." Boyd picked the condom packet up off his chest and shoved it at Raylan, who took it with a slightly amused grin on his face and made that twisting motion again with his fingers before he pulled them out.

The empty, wanting feeling Boyd was left with didn't last long. Raylan rolled the condom on and squeezed the rest of the lube out over it, giving himself a few short strokes before he was shuffling forward between Boyd's legs, one hand still wrapped around the base of his cock to line up. The head pressed against Boyd's hole, thicker than two fingers, and Boyd let out a long breath through his teeth, telling himself to _relax, relax, it's gonna feel so good-_

Raylan's eyes were fixed on where his cock was nudging at Boyd for entry, and he pressed with his hips. The first breech was an unwelcome jolt of discomfort, and Boyd couldn't keep his face from screwing up, but he grabbed for Raylan's hips when it looked like he might stop.

"Don't- keep on, Raylan. I want it."

"Boyd, Christ," Raylan said, pressing in again. It was slow and steady and Boyd felt like he'd turned into hot melted butter. A tingling was spreading through him from the place they joined together all the way down to the tips of his toes, and when Raylan finally bottomed out inside him, he was swearing softly under his breath.

"That's it, _Goddamn_ \- Raylan, fuckin' move," Boyd squeezed his thighs together around Raylan's hips and rocked back onto his cock.

Raylan pitched forward, covering Boyd's body with his own. His rhythm started out slow and languid, pulling out of Boyd until he was stretched open on just the tip of Raylan's cock and then screwing back in again, a hot drag of skin on skin that had Boyd's back arching. Raylan nipped at Boyd's lip and then kissed him, gorgeous and drawn-out, and Boyd knew right then that he'd never love someone else like he loved Raylan Givens, not for the whole rest of his life.

It wasn't long before the snap of Raylan's hips came harder and faster, until he had to prop himself up on his elbows and hold onto Boyd's thighs for leverage. Boyd clung to his shoulders and let Raylan drive slurred praise from his lips, interspersed with cussing and praises to God. Raylan was panting, a hitched groan punched from him when he struck forcefully at the spot that made Boyd see stars and clench up around him.

"Raylan, Raylan, Jesus fuck. Ain't nothin' ever felt this good, ain't nothin' gonna feel this good again." Boyd hardly even knew what he was saying anymore, taken over by the tingling feeling in his limbs and the hot pleasure building in his cock. "Gonna make me come."

"Yeah?" Raylan asked, and he unlocked his grip from Boyd's thigh to wrap his fingers around Boyd's dick instead, jacking him off quick and firm until Boyd had to stuff his fist in his mouth to stifle the yell when he came, shooting all over his chest. "Oh _God,_ Boyd." Raylan's voice was rough and broken and he threw his head back, his hips stuttering twice more before he went still and his elbows gave out. He collapsed down on Boyd's chest, driving Boyd's breath from him, and Boyd wheezed out a short laugh, shoving at his ribs.

They were sweaty and smelling of creek, mud smeared across Boyd's back and all over Raylan's hands and knees, but neither of them moved beyond Raylan tipping Boyd's head to the side to claim his mouth again. The sun had slipped behind the mountains, and long shadows spilled across the creek and the ground, cooling the fever of sex from their skin.

"Get up before we dry all stuck together," Boyd said, shoving at Raylan's ribs again. Raylan groaned, clearly displeased with this idea, but he pulled away, both of them hissing as they separated.

"Gonna need another swim after that," Raylan said dryly, looking them over. He stripped off the condom and pitched it in the bushes along with the empty packet of lube.

"When my legs ain't jelly anymore, I'll get right on that," Boyd said. His cheeks were starting to hurt with the force of his smile - one he knew was soft and dopey because he was sure it looked just like the one on Raylan's face. "Goddamn, I was supposed to be comin' to get you. Expect I'll have some explainin' to do next shift."

Boyd regretted saying it when Raylan's face fell and he rocked back on his heels, wiping mud from his hands onto his thighs. "Won't matter anyway."

"You're not goin' back," Boyd said. He knew it from the look in Raylan's eye. Some men, they had a near miss like that down in the mines and they shrugged it away. Some men looked a near miss in the face and realized just how near it had been, how easy it was never to walk away from that life, and they ran while the running was good.

"No," Raylan said, and Boyd saw something else in the way his eyes darted down to his lap, the way he glanced up at Boyd and then away just as fast.

"You're not goin' back home either," he said, softer this time. Something like fear was beginning to stir in his chest. "You're not leavin' are you?"

Raylan didn't say anything at first. He got up and waded back into the creek, scrubbing at the mud crusted on his knees and calves, washing away all the evidence of what they'd just done as easy as he'd washed away the mines.

"So what the hell was this, a goodbye fuck?" Boyd asked. Raylan looked up at him with a stricken expression, and Boyd knew his was right. "Raylan," he said, and hated the way it came out pleading.

"I gotta get out, Boyd," Raylan said, looking down at the water. "I can't die in a mine, and I can't be the person Arlo wants. It'd kill me, or twist me up inside until I'm like him."

"You don't have to. You could - you could find somethin' else to do. The mines and our daddies' business ain't all there is to Harlan, you could-"

"You think I'd be happy stayin' here my whole life?" Raylan asked - he finally looked up at Boyd, and there was something bleak in his face. Boyd thought he looked more shaken at the notion of staying in Harlan than he had when they spilled out of the mines.

"You're just gonna leave me behind?" Boyd's voice was small and vulnerable and he _hated_ it, hated that Raylan fucking Givens could do this to him, hated that he _knew_ Raylan was right and if he didn't get out of Harlan he'd be a bitter, angry old man just like his daddy one day.

"You could come with me." Raylan tried for a smile that wouldn't stay on his lips, because he knew as well as Boyd did that Harlan was in the Crowders' bones, and Boyd had never longed to escape the same way he had.

"If you go, we ain't never gonna be the same," Boyd said. He pushed himself to his feet and splashed into the creek, grabbing for Raylan's face, holding it tight between his hands. "You leave me now and I ain't gonna be the same person when you come back. You make me better, Raylan."

"Don't do that to me," Raylan said, even as his hands came to settle on Boyd's hips, warm and clutching at his skin. "Don't make it my fault, because I gotta do somethin' and I gotta do it for me. You _are_ better. Always been. You're better than your brother and your piece of shit daddy - you're better than this place."

Boyd sighed and kissed him. It was an open-mouthed tangling of tongues that slowed into the soft press of their lips together. It felt like love. It felt like goodbye.

"Where are you gonna go?" Boyd swallowed against the tightness in his throat. Raylan had to do this, and he was right - Boyd couldn't lay his own future at Raylan's feet like a burden. Still, he pressed his forehead against Raylan's collarbone, hiding his face.

"Don't know," Raylan said. "Aunt Helen's first. See if she can help me any. I've got six hundred dollars saved up from my shifts that I've been hidin' at her house so daddy don't spend it on whiskey. I can take that."

"Six hundred ain't gonna get you far," Boyd said.

"Far enough," Raylan said.

They stood there in the creek as the sun went down, clinging to each other, and Boyd had to clear his throat three times before he could croak, "You know I love you like anything."

"Boyd-"

"I ain't tryin' to make you stay," Boyd said, his fingers digging into Raylan's back as he held him close. "Just wanted to say it. Wanted you to hear it before I never got a chance again."

It was dark now, and they were shivering as they finally let each other go and waded out of the creek, pulling on their dirty, dust-covered clothes over damp skin. They walked together through the woods back to where Raylan's truck was parked - all was deserted now, and there was no-one to see them approach with their shoulders bumping together and the backs of their hands brushing.

Raylan shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the driver's side door, staring down at his shoes. "You want a ride home?"

"No." Boyd stepped up into his space, pressing him back against the truck, and kissed him hard, trying to pour all his longing into it. "I want you to stay with me."

"I can't," Raylan said, and that was that.

Boyd was a Crowder through and through, and if he gave himself time to get truly desperate over this, he might do something stupid. Like knock Raylan out and drag him to some holler somewhere, keep him there forever so Boyd never had to know a life without him.

Raylan pushed him back, gently, his hands on Boyd's chest. "Don't become like them," he said, as pleading as Boyd had been earlier. "Please don't become your daddy."

"Well, Raylan," Boyd said, taking a step back and feeling like his heart had cracked right down the middle, "you'll just have to come back someday and find out if I have, won't you?"

It was bitter, and not how he wanted them to part ways, but this was Harlan County, not a goddamn fairy tale, so Raylan said, "Goodbye, Boyd," and climbed in his truck.

Boyd watched his taillights disappear around the bend in the mountain road, and all he felt was numb, like he'd been hollowed out and left in pieces. He would never love anyone else in his life the way he loved Raylan Givens, and he'd never hate anyone else like it either.


End file.
